


wanting you the way I do (I only want to be with you)

by silver_wings



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, bill and bev were teen parents, gilmore girls-ish au, if derry maine was more stars hollow connecticut, no clowns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27161869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_wings/pseuds/silver_wings
Summary: Bill stopped the car glancing at the ‘WELCOME TO DERRY, MAINE’ sign.‘Well kiddo, here goes nothing.’--------Derry, Maine meets Stars Hollow, Connecticut
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier (background)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	wanting you the way I do (I only want to be with you)

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first it fic, this idea came to me and wouldn't leave until I wrote it down. basic premise is if derry, was more like stars hollow in gilmore girls. also may contain some scenes originally in gilmore girls.
> 
> apologies for any typos or mistakes, I've tried my best to edit
> 
> thanks for reading

Bill Denbrough had lived in Augusta Maine his whole life, all thirty-two years of it. He was born there, went to school there, worked dead end jobs there and when his daughter, Charlotte, was born he assumed her story would be similar. The fact that he had a daughter at all was when he should have realised life as he knew it had changed inexplicably. 

Charlotte Denbrough was born to Bill and his best friend Beverly Marsh when they were dumb 16-year olds. If you asked either of them how it happened, drunk and bored was the loudest explanation. As soon as it happened, they both knew it wasn’t going to happen again and when they found out Bev was pregnant saying they both panicked was an understatement. 

Luckily and surprisingly Bill’s parents were very supportive and immediately offered to help them in any way they could. Bill’s ten-year-old brother Georgie was excited to not be the baby around the house anymore and as the idea sunk in Bill and Bev were more excited and less stressed about the idea. 

They were in their senior year, their daughter Charlotte was nearly one, when Bev was accepted into Juilliard for dance. Her initial reaction was to turn it down, she’d never actually expected to get in, but after some gentle bullying and reassurances from Bill that he and Charlotte would be alright while she was gone, Bev moved to New York City to peruse her dream. 

Over the next fourteen years Bill was the primary caregiver for Charlotte, he attended a local community college and worked at a cafe part time while still living with his parents. When he got a more stable full-time job in an office when he was twenty-four, he and an eighteen-year-old Georgie moved into a small two-bedroom apartment with Charlie. Bill slept on the couch while Georgie and Charlie had their own rooms, although more often than not he ended up squashed in Charlie’s single bed when she couldn’t sleep. 

Bev tried to see them both as often as she could but her work schedule, which often had her traveling around the country and sometimes internationally, meant that most of the time they had to make do with daily video calls. Bev sent them money every week, always more than what they’d originally agreed to, which was squirreled away into a college fund for Charlie, and a very small percentage into an emergency fund. 

When they first moved in together Bill was waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Georgie to realise he didn’t want to spend his time with his older brother and niece but as time went on Bill relaxed and accepted this was where Georgie wanted to be. 

What Bill kept forgetting was two years earlier when Charlie started school, Georgie was crying more on her first day than Bill and Bev combined. 

Bill and Charlie continued living with Georgie up until now. 

Bev was injured during her latest tour, enough that she had to retire from dancing professionally, and given that her dad died ten years earlier leaving her a house in her small hometown of Derry, Maine, she decided it was time to return home for the first time in nearly twenty years. 

Convincing Bill to leave Augusta took some expert persuasion on Bev and Charlie’s part. Bill was happy for Charlie to move with her mother and for him to stay where he was giving his girls time together, they had sorely missed the last fourteen years. 

The Marsh/Denbrough ladies had other ideas. 

After months of back and forth while Bev finished renovations on her childhood home and setting up her new dance studio, they finally wore Bill down and convinced him to move to Derry with them. Mostly by Bev guilting him into allowing her to pay him back for everything he’d done by housing and supporting him to help achieve his dream to become a writer. The move was confirmed with a tiny nudge from Georgie who was thinking of taking time out of life to backpack around the world. 

Bill and Charlie slowly drove into the town square, all their belongings packed in the car with them. Bill stopped the car glancing at the ‘WELCOME TO DERRY, MAINE’ sign. 

‘Well kiddo, here goes nothing.’

\--------

Bev was working when they finally made it to Derry so she told them to meet her at the diner, Mike’s, across the street from her new dance studio. 

‘One tea, and one coke please?’ Bill asked the man who came up to their table. 

‘Actually make the coke a coffee.’ Bill glared at Charlie. 

‘Charlie, no, you’re too young for coffee.’

‘Mom doesn’t think so.’

‘Well your mother’s too young for coffee too.’ 

The server watched them with a smile on his face, resisting the urge to laugh at the exchange. When Bev had told him her daughter and her daughter’s father were joining her in Derry, he wasn’t sure what to think, but seeing them now he suspected this was going to be the most fun Derry had seen in years. 

‘How about I bring both and you can continue to fight it out then. I’m Mike, by the way, I own the place. I assumed you’re Bill and Charlotte? Bev told me you were coming; we’ve been hearing about you guys in her annual updates for years so it’s great to finally put faces to the names. Anyway, I’ll shut up now and get your drinks.’

Bill watched Mike walk away, thinking that maybe this place wouldn’t be so bad. 

\--------

It was an hour or so later, Bev had come and gone, Bill was waiting for Charlie to finish in the bathroom before they drove to the house to get settled. All at once Bill heard the bell above the door ring, the crash of a chair nearby, and a male voice yelling. 

‘Spaghettio, look it’s pocket sized Bev,’ the taller man who had just entered looked at his companion. 

‘Must you call me that.’

‘Of course Eduardo, how else will you know I’m talking to you?’ the man looks at Charlie pointing to Eddie like ‘this guy? Am I right?’

Richie and Eddie entered the diner just as Charlie was picking herself up off the floor after getting caught on a chair leg. 

‘Umm, hi, who are you?’ Charlie assumed it was someone else who knew Bev, but then again, the whole town knew her. 

‘I am the eminent Richard Tozier, Richie to my fans and this pocket rocket is Eddie Kaspbrak, my shorter half. I can’t believe your mother hasn’t told you about us mini-Bev,’ Eddie rolled his eyes at Richie, giving Charlie and Bill an apologetic look. 

‘She has a name Richie.’

‘Wellll duh, unless her parents are really mean, but c’mon look at her, she looks exactly like Bev at that age, only by the looks of what I saw when we came in less of the grace. I assume the clumsiness is from you,’ he looked and pointed to Bill, ‘you must be daddy-o?’

‘Bill is fine,’ he glared at Richie. 

‘Good to meet you Bilbo, fantastic to finally meet the boy who took care of our precious Beverly when she ditched us for the big city. Also, kudos on the baby making, you’ve created the perfect little clone,' Charlie snickered watching her father’s bemused face while listening to Richie. 

‘Let’s go sit down and order Rich, I think you’ve imposed enough on their time for now,’ Eddie was watching Bill’s confused, glazed expression, the usual reaction to a first time Richie meeting. 

‘Fine Eds. Good to finally meet you both, I’m sure we’ll see you around,’ which Bill and Charlie would later realise was in no way an exaggeration, Richie seemed to have about six jobs at once and gave the illusion of popping up when you least expected it. 

When the two men left, Bill shook his head, wow living here will be interesting, looking to his daughter he saw a similar realisation. 

‘You ready to go home Charls.’

‘After you Daddy-o.’

‘Aw jeez.’

They were making their way out of the diner when Bill heard Mike chuckle and saw an amused grin on his face when he looked around. 

\--------

Charlie was fitting into Derry quite nicely she thought. She had made one good friend, Abby McCall, who’s mothers, Kay and Audra, owned the Antiques shop which looked into the town square. Kay and Audra were in their early 40s, having met at art college twenty years ago and now worked as artists and furniture restorers out of their house which doubled as their shop. 

Charlie had also become relatively friendly with everyone else around town, mostly her mother’s childhood friends. Richie seemed to pop up in any shop she wandered into, he took on odd jobs to supplement the meagre income he received working at the local paper writing light-hearted pieces about the town and its surrounds. Charlie suspected Richie took in so many jobs because he was easily bored and just loved interacting with people, which he missed out on stuck at the newspaper with only his best friend Stanley Uris for company. 

She wasn’t sure how Stan put up with Richie by himself, he was truly a force of nature, but she had since discovered Richie was even harder to deal with when in the presence of Eddie. To Richie Eddie was the sun and Richie was constantly at his shoulder poking and prodding him so he wouldn’t stop shining. 

Charlie thought moving to Derry was worth it to watch Eddie and Richie’s weird dance alone. Considering Eddie owns the Black, White and Read Bookshop, which doubled as the local movie theatre, she had ample opportunity to witness the hilarity. 

\--------

Bill and Charlie have been in Derry for a month when Bev floated the idea of them joining her and her friends at the local theatre, which was just the back of the bookshop, for their annual movie night. By now both Denbrough’s had met and gotten to know Bev’s childhood friends, so with Kay, Audra and Abby also invited they it would be a good way to get more involved in ‘town life’. 

When the Denbrough-Marsh’s arrive, Eddie has shut down the bookstore for a private screening. Richie is unsurprisingly ‘working’, because the usual projectionist is out of town. 

‘I call Big Red,’ Richie exclaimed in his usual ‘yell’. 

‘I think you’ll find being away for 15 years gives me dibs,’ Bev called out as the three entered the room. 

‘Is calling dibs not sacred anymore?’ Richie teased, nudging Bev as she walked past him. 

‘Richie leave it, you’re working anyway so you have to stay back here,’ Eddie came up behind Richie carrying the film reels for the night. 

‘Only if you stay back here with me Eds,’ Richie kissed Eddie on the cheek when he was next to him. 

‘Don’t call me Eds, we‘re at work.’

‘A technicality.’

‘Stop it Rich, everyone’s here for a movie not a live sex show.’

‘Jeez, mind in the gutter babe, I just want to cuddle.’

‘Yeah right, I know you Rich.’

‘And I know you and I know you loooove me.’ Richie drapes his arm over Eddie’s shoulder. 

‘No I don’t.’

‘That’s not what you said last night,’ Richie’s eyebrows waggle suggestively as Eddie rolls his eyes and tries to shake Richie of him. 

‘Ssshh Rich there’s children here,’ he gestured to Charlie and Abby, on the red couch with Bev and Ben. 

‘Pftttt they’re 16, they’re not stupid and you already yelled ‘sex show’ it’s too now late they know,’ Richie took his arm off Eddie and grabbed the reels from him. 

‘Bite me.’

‘With pleasure,’ despite himself Eddie was grinning at Richie. 

‘Oh my god guys, just start the movie already and then you can get a room before you are charged with corrupting minors,’ Stan called from the smaller couch in the room where Patty sniggered next to him. 

‘So this is what I’ve missed,’ Bev looked back, grateful that despite the time passed, her losers were still basically the same. 

‘Yeah, aren’t you glad you’re back,’ Eddie called back as Richie finally started the movie. 

During the back and forth Bill ended up sitting on a dining chair, all the other comfier chairs already being taken, finding himself sitting next to Mike. 

‘Don’t worry next time we’ll get the better seats,’ Mike whispered as Bill shifted trying to get comfortable. 

Mike’s chair felt too close for Bill’s liking but when he tried to scoot the chair over, the array of years’ worth of spilt liquids and food crumbs littering the floor meant the chairs were stuck enough that moving them would make it took obvious he was retreating.

Bill found the closeness not to be as daunting throughout the night as originally thought, and if he found that his and Mike’s knees kept bumping through the night, eventually staying in contact, well Bill would blame the chairs. 

\--------

Bill was fucked. 

He was floundering and Charlie and Bev both knew it. He tried to be nonchalant when they teased him about how often he was at the diner or how often he ‘bumped’ into Mike at Eddie’s bookshop. 

He tried not to listen when his girls implied that Mike was looking at him the same way, but couldn’t help but sit up and little straighter and try to look a little less grumpy whenever he saw Mike. 

\--------

‘I’ll just have a salad and some ice water with a lemon wedge please.’ 

‘Are you serious?’ It had been three months since Bill and Charlie had moved to Derry, and in that time, Bill had spent part of everyday at Mike’s diner so it surprised him that he still questioned his order. 

‘Yeah why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Because this is a diner and there is a whole list of greasy, delicious items and you’ve ordered a salad,’ Mike put on a stern face looking at Bill. 

‘I like salad.’

‘Really’

‘Really, really,’ 

‘Okay, if you’re sure I’ll make you a salad. It might take a little while because you may be the only person in the history of diners that has ordered the salad and I may need to buy some stuff,’ Mike gave up and smiled at Bill as he wrote down the order. 

‘Why do you have it on the menu then?’

‘You know, just cause it’s the thing to do, never thought I’d see this day. Are you sure you don’t want a side of fries as well or something?’

‘Nah I’m good with the salad,’ Bill smiled as Mike shook his head in false disbelief. 

‘Okie dokie no problem, one salad coming up ya weirdo.’

From that day on the menu featured three new salads and Mike made sure to have all the ingredients on hand. 

\--------

Charlie admitted living with her mom and dad together was weird, she’d never experienced that before, except for the short bursts of time when Bev visited them, but that was usually only for one or two weeks every few months. 

When Bev and Charlie had started trying to convince Bill to move with them, she had been slightly worried there would be tension, but that worry was soon forgotten after their first night when Charlie watched her parents argue about where the couch would go, a fight which eventually ended in an arm wrestle to decide. 

Charlie was now worried about how her dad was settling in to Derry in general. 

She knew he was having trouble being a way from Georgie and not having constant work like he did back home. She was grateful that he’d taken Stan up on his offer to do some freelance work for the paper and hoped that would help spur him into action with his other writing. 

Despite all those worries, what kept Charlie up the most at night was watching her Dad low key pine over the diner man Mike. 

Bill was there every single day, sometimes staying there all day if he was struggling to get some words on the page. Charlie heard from her sources though, that not a whole lot of writing was going on, more like Bill distractedly watching Mike serve and smile at customers. Charlie was very pleased her mother’s dance studio gave the perfect vantage point for Bev to spy.

Bev wasn’t the only one who had noticed. 

After being in Derry for a few weeks Charlie managed to get a job at an inn on the outskirts of town, owned by her mother and father’s old friend Ben Hanscom and his friend Patty Blum. 

Charlie thought it was interesting that Ben had ended up in Derry as well, considering she knew he grew up in Augusta too and was expected by everyone to become an architect. She also thought it was interesting how often her mother was ‘in the neighbourhood’ to pick her up from work and she may have noticed the way her boss and her mother looked at each other when they didn’t think anyone was watching, but Charlie had one parents love life to worry about for the moment.

When she got more comfortable at work and started chatting to Patty during the lulls, Charlie found Patty agreed with her about the mutual pining from Bill and Mike, and thus a group chat featuring Bev, Patty, Charlie, her friend Abby and Abby’s mothers was born and kept them all up to date on daily sightings. 

\--------

‘C’mon dad you gotta come,’ Charlie was leaning over the back of the couch where Bill was watching tv. 

‘Why? You’re going with Bev and meeting up with your friends, I don’t need to be there for that,’ Bill flicked through the channels, not finding anything interesting. 

‘But Mom said it’s a long-standing Derry tradition and you can’t miss your first one, what are people going to think?’ Charlie exclaimed dramatically draping herself over her father. 

‘That I have better things to do than go to a firelight festival,’ Bill turned off the tv knowing he was probably going to be persuaded. 

‘But you obviously don’t, so you should come...please...everyone’s gonna be there,’ as a last resort Charlie pulled out the puppy dog eyes which Bill had never been able to resist and went in for the kill, ‘also Mike will be there.’

‘So?’ Bill tried not to let his interest at that show. 

‘Well you’re friends right? I mean you eat at his diner every day.’

‘Ugh fine, but if I hate it I’m coming right back home.’

As much as bill wanted to say he hated it, for the principal of the thing, he found himself being mesmerised by all of it. 

The lights, the bonfire, the ‘community spirit’ were all giving Bill an insight into this town that he hadn’t seen yet. Finally, he was really seeing the ‘small town charm’ that everyone was talking about. 

He watched Eddie, Richie, Stan, Patty and Ben getting drunk on the local ‘founders day punch’ which rumour has it had a chemical structure closer to jet fuel. Bev was chatting with Kay and Audra, while children periodically came up to her begging her to dance with them. Bev eventually gave in and roped Charlie and Abby into joining her. 

It was then that Bill saw Mike, dressed in a corduroy Sherpa style jacket, a massive scarf around his neck and the most ridiculously colored beanie that Bill had ever seen. Bill watched through the bonfire’s flames as Mike went around the square handing out coffee and hot chocolate from a tray. 

Mike turned around and saw Bill staring before Bill could duck his head. Mike smirked before going to the table where he had more drinks and grabbed a hot chocolate before making his way to the other side of the square to where Bill was watching. 

When Mike got to him, he didn’t say anything just handed over the cup with a smile. 

It was then that Bill felt his heart in his throat and was overwhelmed by Mike’s smile, the warmth of his hand and how close he was standing. 

Mike smirked again and left to continue working, leaving Bill dazed and confused. 

\--------

Thinking about how Mike looked the night of the firelight festival kept Bill up at night. The jacket, the beanie, the heart melting smile all combined to make achieving any sort of rest impossible. 

Bill didn’t know what to do. 

He was well past floundering, now he was just panicking and trying to not let Charlie and Bev see it, although he was not succeeding. 

He had very little experience in this area, Charlie took up most if not all of his time, especially when she was younger. He knew Bev and Charlie were close to yelling at him to just do something already, but all that was going through his head was panic mixed with Mike’s smile. 

\--------

After months of awkward sort of flirting, Bill wasn’t a hundred percent convinced it was mutual, and long talks during the lulls at the diner something finally happened. 

Bev was out with Ben, Stan and Patty. Charlie was at Abby’s house and Bill was on baby chick duty, aka Charlie’s latest school project. While he was out getting food for dinner the chick got out of the cage. In his panic he managed to call Mike to help out. 

‘Help, I’ve lost the chick.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Mike wasn’t sure what was happening but he was definitely intrigued. 

‘Charlie’s baby chick got out and she’s being graded on it so I need to find it. I need help Mike.’ 

‘Umm okay sure,’ Bill hung up without responding and threw his phone on the couch and continued to search. 

Mike arrived surprised to find they were in fact looking for a baby chick, found the house was in total disarray and Bill yelling incoherently. 

Mike proceeded to help Bill search the house for it. Mike noted that seeing Bill like this was probably the most disheveled he had ever seen him and tried to push that thought away while searching for the animal. 

When they finally found it, two hours later, they were both sweaty and exhausted. They both finally relaxed once Bill had safely deposited the chick in the now properly latched cage. 

Bill looked at Mike to thank him but before the words could leave him, he found himself being kissed. 

Bill’s not quite sure how it happened but Mike was too good at it to really question it, and Bill eventually found himself on the couch, with Mike’s strong arms around him. 

\--------

Bev and Charlie arrived home later that night at the same time, both stopping in their tracks when they realised there was two sleeping bodies on the couch instead of the expected one. 

Looking down on the two men curled around each other comfortably, which seemed impossible given they were on what looked like the smallest couch in the world. 

Without a word they and a conspiratorial smile, Charlie and Bev, respectively, draped a blanket over the sleeping pair and snapped some photographic evidence to post to the newly formed group chat, and left the two men to sleep.


End file.
